Hi Gene,

Hopefully next time around, Eric and Charlotte will be on the same page, as regards to what they want their cruising life to entail. He seems fixated on a circumnavigation, and nothing less...

She, not so much... Three days into their first-ever offshore passage together as a family:

I was not happy. I felt sick. I felt like an automaton, existing only for the survival of my children, and yes, OF COURSE, I’m here for the survival of my children, but my god, I just needed-to-change-my-pad, wash-my-hands, eat-some-chocolate, and BREATHE for one goddamn second without having to worry about the kids.

And so.

And so, we got Cora watching a movie, and Eric entertaining Lyra, and I crawled into the quarter berth, clutched my abdomen, and tried to sleep. I had stress dreams about my face breaking out in boils, and the girls’ faces too, and then there was no way to fix it, and I woke up and stumbled out of the berth and asked Eric point blank,

“How long would it take you to sail around the world yourself?” “I don’t know. Figure a month from here, a month from there, if I went non-stop, maybe six months? Eight months? Who knows? Why?” “I’m just wondering if you could sail around the world, and I could take the girls and fly to my sister’s and wait it out there. Realistically, how long?”

One of the things this this episode really highlights for me, is the huge advantage we here on the East coast have over our California brethren in terms of options for newbs dipping their toes into the fulltime cruising life... The Eastern seaboard is SO much more friendly to going about it taking 'baby steps', making your way down to a cruising ground like the Bahamas via the ICW interspersed with hops outside when done conveniently or comfortably... An endless array of fabulous cruising grounds within easy reach, from the Bahamas to the Canadian Maritimes, when you guys have, what - the Channel Islands? (grin)

Then, we have one of the great offshore shakedowns anywhere in the world, the trip out and back to Bermuda... Not to mention, the numerous opportunities someone seeking offshore experience to gain some by crewing on OPBs, in events like Marion-Bermuda, or the fall rallies to the Caribbean... You guys, on the other hand, are pretty much limited to heading down to Cabo, and hanging out in Mexico... From there, it's either a 3000 mile passage into the Pacific, or perhaps heading down to Panama and thru the canal, and then a very challenging slog into the Caribbean...

I'd bet the Kaufmann's would have been much better prepared, and much more in synch in terms of experience and goals, had they simply had the good fortune of embarking on the cruising life on the East coast, as opposed to SoCal...

best regards,

Jon